


Another Deal With Death

by epersonae



Series: Aftermath [29]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Finale spoilers, Reaper!Lup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 22:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11838330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: Lucretia has lived an impossibly long life for a human. Lup has a gift. A home has room for one more.





	Another Deal With Death

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I'll go down with this ship all the way to the end.

You are so tired. The world has shrunk to this room, where you are worn and weary, everything hurts, and your mind…. That's the worst of it: you've had a lot of kinds of pain in your improbably long life, but when you can't count on your mind it's the worst betrayal. Sometimes you remember and it's all very clear, and you are wry and sharp, and then everything slips sideways and you feel unmoored. There's no static, thank the gods, but it's hard to remember, well, anything.

“Hey, babe.” She's gorgeous in a snazzy suit, her wild hair like a halo. 

“You're here for work,” you say. None of the people in the room hear you, nor do they see her soft smile. 

“Got it in one,” she says. “You ready?”

You look around one last time, and no, you're not ready, you'll never be ready. There will always be some other story to write down. A new voice in your great extended family, a new project, a new day. The boy is holding your hand, and you can't imagine that another day will come, and you won't be there to see his face. 

But that doesn't matter. You're already following her, without another word. And the pain, it falls away, as you follow her through the shining tear in space. You suppose after this long, twice or more of the span you ought to have gotten, disappearing into the twinkling lights of the astral will be about right. 

But she's still smiling, that secret smile you've known so long, a smile that means she's got something up her sleeve. And there's an island in that endless sea. 

“Krav, he made a deal, a while ago, and well…. I got a little extension.”

She kisses you, which doesn't make sense for an astral form, but you're not an astral form. It's oddly familiar, being woven back into…into the body you inhabited for a hundred years. The body that you have always felt when you closed your eyes, even after Wonderland, after the apocalypse, after everything. 

You're walking on grass and it's soft under your bare feet. A dog runs up to greet you like it did every time you visited Ravens Roost. 

“Hey, Johann.” You pet his ridiculously enormous head. It bounds away, running circles around the old bloodhound. 

A woman walks out of the door. You've never seen her, but you know. That big smile, who wouldn't fall in love? You feel shy, which seems weird for someone who just died. 

“C’mon in, hon,” she says. And behind her, filling the doorway, his arm around her waist, he's there, he's smiling too. 

“I wanna hear everything,” he says. “We'll put on some tea and you can get us all caught up.”

And you're running towards them like you've never run before. You pause for a second, turn to thank her, to say something, anything, but she's gone. So you step towards them, and his arm is around your shoulders, and you're not tired anymore. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks McElroys for making me cry so much over a dumb D&D podcast. Thanks WDA for being there to all cry together. Thanks Lucretia for my life. 
> 
> Title is a riff on my [Lucretia and Kravitz story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11410356). (RIP Kravitz's goofy accent.)


End file.
